Week 33 – Young

This week’s theme Young is being represented by the young humpback calf I was lucky enough to encounter on my recent whale watching trip in Juneau, Alaska. This calf was accompanied by its mother and another adult female on it’s journey to the northern feeding grounds of Alaska and the Arctic ocean. The youngsters are born in the warm waters of Hawaii and have to make the long journey north in order to feed and grow. At this young stage of their life their lungs are not able to hold enough air for them to attempt the long dives their mothers are capable of (sometimes they dive for as long as 45 minutes), so the mother has to adjust her diving times to ensure she comes up early enough for her calf to catch that vital breath of fresh air. Here it seemed like she was teaching her youngster the deep diving technique, which are always marked by their large tails going high and gracefully up in the air before these great animals disappear into the deep.

For this particular post I run the original photo through Topaz Labs’ Adjust 5 plug-in to make it look more like a painting, Hope you enjoy the finished article.